I’m excited to announce that I have a new collection out – The Emotion Dealer and other stories is in shops… now! Go order it from your local bookstore, ask for it from your local library, or get all the details about it here.
This has been a serious undertaking – to the point where I was pretty sure the old adage “everyone has a book in them” was true for me, but I only really had that one. Turns out there’s two at least!
But it did take drastic action – I started writing longer stories. In fact, the title story ended up being over 8,000 words long. Don’t ask me what happened, it got drastically out of hand. I think the end product is pretty good though – even for something I was writing on the bus to and from work.
It’s an interesting object to look at as a writer, because it’s got a lot of different things going on in it. One story, The edge of nowhere, I first drafted in 2013. That feels like it was a thousand years ago. Then the most recent story is from last year. This book’s distinctly more serious than the last one, with less overtly absurd elements. I don’t know what that says about me – hopefully not that I’ve started taking myself too seriously.
No lies, I’m nervous how The Emotion Dealer will be received. Last time I was insulated by lockdown and the fact I lived in the middle of nowhere. This time… What if people don’t like it? What if people don’t like me?
If everyone could buy the book to show they like me, that would be great.